Listen to the audio version of the article
(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) – The capital strengthening completed to finance the acquisition of Courvoisier puts Davide Campari on the ropes in Piazza Affari. The group’s stocks suffer from the worst performance of the FTSE MIB, leaving even more than six points on the ground. Before the opening of the market, Campari announced that it had placed new ordinary shares for 650 million euros with accelerated bookbuilding, at 9.33 euros per share, as well as a convertible bond for 2029 of 550 million euros. «As expected in the context of the acquisition of Courvoisier on 14 December last on the various financing alternatives, with this placement the group has taken advantage of the favorable market conditions to optimize the financing structure», we read in a press release.
Campari, following what was communicated on 9 January, successfully placed new ordinary shares of the company, with a nominal value of 0.01 each, for a gross proceeds of approximately 650 million euros, with an accelerated bookbuilding offering placement, at 9.33 euros per ordinary share, and a total nominal amount of senior unsecured convertible bonds maturing in 2029 of 550 million euros, convertible into new and/or existing ordinary shares of the company. The net proceeds will be used to finance the transaction and for general corporate purposes. As stated in a note, «the placement will improve the pro-forma capital structure of the group by accelerating the deleverage process and will extend the average maturity of the group’s liabilities, thus further strengthening the financial profile of the issuer, allowing further growth» .
The joint global coordinators and joint bookrunners carried out, in conjunction with the placement of the convertible bonds, a simultaneous accelerated placement of existing ordinary shares of Campari, on behalf of those subscribers of the convertible bonds who intended to proceed with the short sale of such shares to buyers procured by the joint global coordinators for hedging purposes in relation to the market risk deriving from the Bonds subscribed by them. The placement price of the Delta Placement shares is equal to the issue price of the new shares, and the issuer will not receive proceeds, directly or indirectly, from any sale of the Delta Placement shares. The placement and concurrent Delta Placement were made via an accelerated bookbuilding offer to qualified investors.
«According to our calculations, the acquisition of Courvoisier in the short term would have brought the leverage close to the levels that the management considers as the maximum ceiling (3.5 times) and therefore we believe that the rationale for this financing operation could be to acquire financial flexibility , possibly also in view of a possible new acquisition, as also anticipated by the CEO in a recent interview”, comment Equita analysts. Experts now estimate a leverage at the end of 2025 equal to 2 times compared to the 2.8 that it would have reached with entirely debt financing and the 1.6 before the acquisition.
«With this financing mix – they add – according to our calculations the impact of the acquisition on the adjusted earnings per share at 2025-27E becomes slightly negative (-1/2%)», despite being «more than compensated by the drop in interest rates of interest”. Equita raised the target to 11.4 euros, confirming the “hold” recommendation. «We believe that this financing structure is effective because it allows Campari to maintain a balanced financial position with room for further potential M&A operations», confirm the Banca Akros experts who reiterate the “accumulate” opinion.